Every year, my section at work has a big picnic in a local park. There are a hundred or so people in the section, divided into six or seven groups, and each year each group is supposed to devise some kind of entertaining game to be played at the picnic. Our group typically doesn’t put a whole lot of thought into it; last year, we had a water balloon toss, and this year we provided a jar filled with M&Ms for people to guess the quantity of.

But there’s one group that always outdoes the rest of us. Last year, they did their own version of Fear Factor; this year it was sumo wresting.

Yes, sumo wrestling. I neglected to bring my camera this year, and truly I am paying for it. Picture this: a large blue gym mat, about twenty feet square, with a red circle marked on it, and two big overstuffed flesh-colored sumo suits, complete with diapers.

The suits open down the back. You have to slide in feet first while lying on your stomach. Then helpful people do up the velcro and lift you to your feet, because heaven knows you can’t get up on your own. And there you and your opponent stand, looking like Tenniel’s illustration of Tweedledum and Tweedledee as they prepared to go into battle.

Small children ooh and ah as you rush at each other, flailing your arms and legs madly but achieving only a diffident wave of your hands and an astronaut-like hopping motion. You bang into each other–it’s the clash of the titans! Eventually, one of you slips and falls out of the ring. It’s best two falls out of three.

Finally, the match is over. Your helpers lay you down on your stomach, and undo the velcro, and you struggle to free yourself from the sumo suit. It’s a miracle of nature, how the suit splits open and you emerge, moth-like, from your cocoon, dripping with sweat and tired in every bone.

Several of my co-workers tried it; one of them was still wobbly when we left, over an hour later.

Dearest Lord, this I ask:

For the victims of 9/11, and all victims of terror everywhere in the world, may they rest in your heavenly peace.

For the terrorists of 9/11, and all other terrorists who have killed themselves while murdering other people, may they be forgiven, though they have done great evil, for their leaders lied to them and trained them in wickedness.

For the leaders of al Quaida, Hamas, the PLO, and all other groups that teach their children to worship death, may they be led to repent of their wickedness and live their lives making restitution to the families of those they have killed.

And if they will not repent, may your judgement be swift and sure.

Amen.

It would be hard to summarize the plot of this book adequately in a
paragraph without completely butchering it since the text runs, in the
Oxford World Classic Edition, to 1,095 pages without including the notes,
the biographical information or the tedious and obligatory forward by a
literature professor. I will try.

Essentially, it’s a tale of revenge. Edmond Dantes is falsely accused of
treason on the eve of his wedding to the beautiful Catalan, Mercedes. I
won’t go into details about how or why. He ends up in the Chateau d’If, in
solitary where he goes thru a cycle of confusion, anger and despair. The
Abbe Faria tunnels his way into Dantes’ cell and over the next ten years
teaches him everything he knows. He also tells him the secret of the Isle of
Monte Cristo, containing an enormous treasure. Dantes escapes from the
prison, again, I won’t say how, and finds the treasure. He then goes about
exacting his revenge armed with unlimited wealth on everyone who had
anything to do with his imprisonment, which actually comprises most of the
book.

It’s not light or easy reading. There is so much detail that sometimes the
minute plot twists are not apparent. Read originally as a serial, which is
how it was originally published, that may have been easier to deal with.
However, I enjoyed it completely. I waffled from liking the Count and
feeling sorry for him to thinking him a complete jerk, especially in the
bits with Mercedes or Haydee. There were parts that were just a little too
fantastic to be believable and I thought the end, which I am not going to
divulge, just a bit too neat and tidy for a revenge novel. Overall,
however, it was a rollicking good tale that I was sorry to finish.

So my four-year-old boy, James, just came downstairs for his bedtime story. More specifically, he came down the stairs head first, on his stomach, saying “Slith. Slith. Slith.” as he slid from stair to stair.

Yes, that’s right. He was slithering.

“I slithered down like a snake,” he told me. “Do you know why, Daddy?”

“No, James, why?”

“Because it’s fun, that’s why.”

Now this is just too silly for words–but it’s all in good fun. Using a sophisticated geographical database and analysis software, a couple of P.G. Wodehouse fans claim to have identified the original of Blandings Castle.

(Via Mirabilis)

Terry Teachout has just done me the courtesy of linking to one of my posts, and as I haven’t mentioned his blog in a while I’d like to put in a plug for it.

Granted, this is like putting in a plug for the 2 Blowhards–is there really anybody who comes here who doesn’t regularly go there as well?

But I digress. Terry Teachout is the arts critic for the Wall Street Journal, and he’s recently started writing a daily blog which is a lot more fun that I’d have expected that a New York art critic’s blog could be. Terry’s got a down-to-earth style, delightfully lacking in jargon, and and while much of what he writes is of little interest to me (I don’t live in New York) there’s always something I find interesting.

He updates his blog every weekday. Go take a look.

Wonder of wonders, Iam Hamet has posted something after a two-week breather. Go, thou.

And right at the top of his post (in fact, I’ve not yet read the rest of it) is a link to this parody of Jane Eyre, which is very much worth your time–even if you’ve never read Jane Eyre, as I confess I haven’t.

Chapter 32 and Chapter 33 of my novel Through Darkest Zymurgia! are now available for your delectation at Once-Told Tales.

This week: the dangers of romance!

This is the second volume of Brust’s epic
The Viscount of Adrilankha, which (like
The Lord of the Rings) is really a single novel in three
volumes. It’s just as delightful as its predecessor–in fact, it’s better–and I’m eagerly awaiting the publication of the third volume in the set.

For those who came in late, Brust has long been working on a series of
historical novels set in the same world as his Vlad Taltos books. Yes, I
said historical novels; they are (supposedly) written by a citizen of
that world, Sir Paarfi of Roundwood, a verbose and increasingly testy
academic; by the time of the current volume, his books have become quite
popular in Dragaera and one senses that he’s letting it go to his head.

If you like fantasy, and you haven’t read any books by Steven Brust, then
you need to do something about that. This, however enjoyable, is not the
book to start with. Not only is the middle third of a single novel, but
The Viscount of Adrilanhka, taken altogether, is the third
novel in a larger series which Brust has written as an homage to
Alexandre Dumas‘s Three Musketeers saga. These books are by no
means simple retellings of Dumas’ classic works–the plots are entirely
different–but there are decided and amusing parallels. You can go to
our Steven Brust page to find the other books.

And then there are the Vlad Taltos novels; start with Jhereg,
or the more recent omnibus edition, The Book of Jhereg, which
groups the first three or so Vlad novels.

I’ve got an interesting history with this novel. If you go use the
search box on my Ex Libris
Reviews site, you’ll see that a guest reviewer reviewed this book in
the most glowing terms some years ago. A guest reviewer who never
reviewed another book for me, whose initials were JB, and who, oddly,
shares an e-mail address with John Blumenthal, the author of the book. I
discovered this a few months ago, when Mr. Blumenthal sent me some e-mail
asking if I’d like a review copy.

A digression: every so often, someone will contact me asking if I’d like
a review copy of something or other. I almost always say no; life is too
short to spend my time reading books I don’t like, and if I accept a
review copy I feel like I need to read it. I’ve gotten burned that way a
couple of times, and now I’m fairly cautious.

Anyway, I called Mr. Blumenthal on his imposture, and he not only ‘fessed
up but did so so handsomely that I
agreed to read his book and tell you all what I think of it. And now
I’ve read it, and I’m at somewhat of a loss as to what to say about it,
as it’s really not my usual thing.

So let me tell you a little about it.

To begin with, it’s a novel in the proper sense: it’s about characters
and how they change. Most of the fiction I read–indeed, most genre
fiction in general–falls into the romance category: stories that are
remote in place or time and concern adventure, heroism, mystery, and so
forth. This, on the other hand, strikes me as more a Woody Allen/John
Updike sort of thing. (That’s not a compliment, by the way…the one
time I tried to read an Updike novel, I failed.)

It’s a novel about a screenwriter named Martin Dorfman. He’s sold six
scripts, none of which have managed to be filmed. He’s trying to sell a
seventh script. He’s worried that his career is nearly over. And he’s
nauseated. Seriously, deeply, falling-down nauseated. He’s sick. His
doctor can’t find anything wrong with him. The specialists can’t find
anything wrong with him. His doctor thinks that his trouble is all
stress-induced. His father (a retired doctor) thinks it’s neurological.
Unless it’s stomach cancer. The tests are all negative. He tries other
doctors. He tries a variety of alternative medical regimens. Nothing
works. He’s getting no better, and neither is his career. Meanwhile,
he’s reminiscing about growing up with a father for whom death by
bacillus lurks around every door.

I find it very difficult to judge this book. It’s supposed to be funny,
and in places I found it so–but Dorfman’s upbringing and world are very
different from mine. I suspect that I don’t have the background to appreciate
where he’s exagerating and where he’s telling the plain truth–and where
for those in the know it’s laugh or cry. (What can I say, I grew up in a
functional family.) I suspect it would be funnier if I came from the
right background.

So did I enjoy it? Yes, somewhat. It was mildly engaging, and I was
genuinely curious to see how it came out–I have no quarrel with Mr.
Blumenthal’s story-telling skills. While the book necessarily included
the discussion of a plethora of bodily functions and symptoms, it wasn’t
nearly as gross as I feared it would be. And I do have to congratulate
Mr. Blumenthal on Martin’s liaison with the Other Woman–his handling of
it was delightfully refreshing (I can say no more with spoiling it).

Will I re-read it, ever? Probably not.

But if you’re the sort who likes books about neurotic people struggling
to overcome both their own neuroses and those they inherited from their
parents, you might like this. It’s not my cup of tea, so I suppose the
fact that I found it mildly entertaining anyway can be taken as high praise.